I once saw a jogger push the crossing button on one of the busiest roads in the city and then continue on his way without crossing. I kinda respect that kind of mad-lad behaviour. :)
One hour commute to the office for a job that could be done from home is the real destruction of time in a human life.
While the dude who pressed the button witnessed 100 able, adult people sitting in a polluting metal box instead of walking, cycling or taking public transport.
Just for you, Jeff, I’m pushing every single walk button I see, especially when I’m not crossing the road.
People intentionally say stupid things on Twitter to rile up viewers into arguing in the replies (free engagement!) and get even people who hate them to share their “content”
I’m taking my 2” recline it’s all I got
I don’t understand, isn’t this the button you press if you want to cross? Are you not supposed to press the button?
In America pressing that button is considered a government handout. You’re supposed to cross the street using common sense and determination. Real men don’t even look to check when they cross the street because they have God on their side.
Raises a good point. So we should destroy those cars to make way for trams.
Trams that never brake because of the collective loss of efficiency that might happen. It’s like the trolley problem except there’s 50 people on the trolley and the amount of money lost by them being collectively late for work is worth the loss of life.
Ohh yes, +1 vote for the trams of death.
I can’t stoppher capin’ the economy just won’t let me.
Rvturn. (This was stopped because the trains kept killing children playing in the street)
Add a giant “cow catcher” to the front of the tram, reinforced so that even the car brain with the most oversized pickup is at the same risk as the rest of us
no… 30s of red light for cars, every 60s, fixed schedule… no wasted time since the drivers already calculated it in :D
Making ~100 cars drive 30 minutes to work every day is the destruction of 50 hour of human life, 100 hours both ways, almost every single day, but apparently cars are freedom so 🤷
I’m pretty confident pushing the button actually doesn’t do anything. You press the button and wait forever and eventually the lights change but they were gonna do that anyway.
It depends on the intersection. Yes, some are a placebo, too many are token, but some actually work.
I know for my nearby intersections, when the button is not pressed, even when the lights change, the walk signal will never illuminate.
I’ve started walking around my town a lot more since Covid, and see all three regulalrly
In college, I lived close to my university’s campus near an intersection that would get very busy during sporting events and other occasions where there would be many people in town.
The intersection would set all the lights to red if it had detected no activity for a good while (such as at night when it was rarely used) and would also immediately change the green light for cross traffic to red if you pressed the crosswalk button so long as there wasn’t any cross traffic for a few minutes.
It was surprisingly sophisticated traffic control considering that most of the other intersections were just on simple timers.
Yeah, a lot of the time they’re just there because people look for them if they’re not and then they fidget, don’t wait for the signal and dash into traffic.
The town I grew up in, the vast majority didn’t do anything but they gently beeped, and if you pushed the button it would tell you the sign status until it completed the cycle. Helpful for vision impaired people.
There were a few that shifted the traffic lights to a different cycle and otherwise it never did a pedestrian cycle.There was one though, where pushing the button nearly immediately started a pedestrian cycle.
There was a wide block with an apartment building in the middle on one side, and a grocery store directly across from it. Not long enough that people complained, but enough so that people still trotted across the otherwise busy street a lot. After trying nearly everything else they eventually put a traffic light in the middle of the block that was nearly entirely on demand for the crosswalk button, because almost any delay and the (college student) residents would just dash across.Watching confused drivers was fun.
Does the US not have traffic light controlled crossings at all then? In the UK we have multiple types of light controlled crossings for pedestrians and others e.g. bikes and horse riders (Pegasus crossing). These are always on demand from the button.
It’s less common to have a light or crosswalk away from a junction. Usually when you push the button it changes the lights to the crossing sequence on the next cycle so everything keeps flowing, so a pedestrian might hit the button, then wait for traffic to stop, then cross traffic, then a dedicated turn cycle. It can be a bit of time.
The light in question would turn yellow the moment you pushed the button, without integration with the nearby lights. Driver’s usually don’t expect to get stopped after being allowed to pass a red light after only about 100 meters.In general, there’s too much variation to say the US as a whole doesn’t do some traffic thing. If it exists odd are someone tried using it on a road somewhere.
In terms of animals, pelican can be quite common in urban environments, zebra in suburban. I haven’t quite seen a toucan other than separate signal fixtures in downtown Seattle (my memory is a bit hazy though). I have yet to see pegasus or puffin.
Ok good. I was worried for a moment there when the commenter I was replying to painted a picture of US drivers totally confused by traffic signals that weren’t part of a junction for road vehicles.
I also had never seen a Pegasus crossing in the UK until one appeared close to where I live, it’s between a suburban area and a national park crossing a 60mph road so it makes sense for horse riders to cross there. They probably appreciate it.
You might be a little far south for the Pacific Puffin.
I know at least some of them work, because sometimes I’ll be waiting there for the walk signal and it never appears, and I go “Oh, I forgot to push the button.”
Where I live the major cross streets’ buttons are just placebo. They aren’t even connected. It just makes people feel better to push them.
The smaller streets, however, they are critical. You will not get the walk indicator without it.
The one near my work extends the red light for long enough you can cross on foot & makes the walking signal & countdown appear.
It does not stop left turning cars from running us over though.
In my country, if you don’t press it, you won’t get green. The intersection will still change, but the pedestrian light won’t. If the button isn’t pressed, the intersection light will change faster, since there won’t be pedestrians holding up traffic.
The confusion I feel as a European about this post.
Despite seeing drivers enraged by road safety and basic courtesy frequently while walking, this remains confusing AND infuriating as an American.
I have no idea what is the supposed message of the “author”. Don’t cross the street?
Their logic: people in cars = captains of industry who cannot be delayed as they go to their power lunches
People on foot = slovenly, slackjawed peasants who are obviously wasting time
Only the poors walk. Don’t be poor.
i’d like to see it the other way around, drivers have to get out and run over to press the beg button. At least they will be getting some exercise.
In my area all of those buttons are vestigial and the cross walks all go on timers.
If it’s real I think he should be sent to a re-education camp. America really needs them.
